A Fool's Diversion
by stephenopolos
Summary: One Shot. Daniel has a conversation and history lesson with a former ascended.


"This is Ashera, the once home of my people. We lived, we grew, and we spread from this world into our home galaxy. Finding none like ourselves we grew arrogant, we took it upon ourselves to change our environment forgetting the science and understanding which allowed us to bring life to the barren lands we called home." The Alteran paused for a moment a beautiful blue and green world on the screen. A large supercontinent dominated the sphere. "Now you see Dr. Jackson why earth all those millennia ago was so desirable to my ancestors. We were reminded of the home we once lost."

"Wait... Lost? I... I don't understand." Dr. Jackson's face showed his bewilderment at this proclamation.

"In a single day our home was destroyed by the weapons of those we had called brother and sister. Weapons far more powerful than any you our children have dreamt of, our towering cities turned to dust and open fields poisoned. The last weapon set upon our world cracked its very foundations." As he spoke the image on the screen changed to show the clouds of radioactive dust spreading out from the large cities stretching across the planet. Then a brilliant light appeared at the northern pole spreading a shockwave throughout the planet, ripping up the crust and generating a massive shockwave it engulfed the world in fire when it reached the opposite pole the world visibly shook before collapsing inward and a massive shockwave spread from the equator outward into space.

The Asheran man's face showed how weary and tired he was, "Dr. Jackson you think my people wise? Certainly we had great knowledge and power; but I wonder, what of our wisdom? My ancestors were a foolish and arrogant people. They sought to make themselves gods and in the end tore Asher apart, cleaving in twain the Asheran people."

"Why else Dr. Jackson would we call ourselves Alteran? Your earth became a symbol of our renewed hope. We denied our past and gave ourselves the name 'of Earth'. Our people who had grown as one, united in their purpose, united in vision, the universe withheld nothing from us. Our determination so great to reach the heights of the universe, to touch the infinite itself, we were blinded by our arrogance. Overconfident our leaders proclaimed and believed themselves to be as gods for we had brought life to our desert, and with the death of our homeworld we paid dearly for our arrogance and pride."

"Can you say that we honestly changed though? We may have spent many years in atonement for our pride. When we met the Aesir we felt we had met a people worth calling friend if not brother. For the first time in many millennia we boldly stepped forward and took a stand. But we are the reason they are no longer here today. It was our cloning technology that our young sibling adopted without understanding. It was our flawed technology they used to extend their lives, until their genetic structure deteriorated to the point of extinction."

"How were we any different from our ancient Asheran ancestors? We stepped forward yet again to bend a galaxy to our will. We moved planets, and brought life to where there was none. We even made planets and reignited cold dead stars!"

"And what stopped us? A pitiful plague, an ingenious virus that spread through our people like wildfire, staring death right in the face what did we do? We ran like whipped dogs with tails between our legs. We destroyed our infrastructure and the only remaining remnants of our worlds the few monuments to our legacy."

"But what of the technology we found? What of the temple at dakara? Or the repositories of knowledge?"

"A fool's diversion. Our children ignorant of the reason they had been told to remain in Pegasus returned here to rebuild, ignorant of the reason their gates were designed incompatible with the rest of our empire. They are the only reason anything more than scattered ruins and stone tablets carrying fragments of our culture remain in this galaxy."

"And what of the Ascended?"

The man scoffed at Daniel's question, "The Ascended have stagnated, they no longer remember what it means to be human, what it means to be flesh, bone, and blood. Ascension is not the goal. Ascension is ignoring the goal, to live is to struggle. To shed the physical form and become energy is an action that halts progress. The Ascended no longer evolve. This is why the Ori required followers to supplement their own meager power. This is why the Alteran Ascended forbid interference with the so called lower planes, those who ascended with greater power desire not to be unseated from that position of power."

"So ascension is only a middle ground meant to be used only temporarily between physical forms?" Daniel pushed forward the insight both surprising himself and the Asheran.

"I… it would be foolish of me to assume that I know what the Ascended plane is truly for. But that is one purpose it has always served for me."


End file.
